Potential Data Sources

New Jersey has several state agencies that maintain GIS data that could be of use in updating OpenStreetMap. Data sources for the State of New Jersey can be searched via NJGIN. Check the metadata to determine whether or not a data source is licensed appropriately for use in OpenStreetMap. Most state-managed data is subject to OPRA and has no restrictions on its use.

Details on Potential Imports

Waterbodies (Lakes & Ponds)

This layer contains only the lake and pond polygons from the 2002 Landuse/Landcover layer but provides more detailed information.

Useful attributes:

NAME

Waterbodies (Rivers, Bays & Oceans)

This layer contains only the rivers, bays, and oceans polygons from the 2002 Landuse/Landcover layer but provides more detailed information. Bays and ocean polygons can be excluded as the NJ shoreline has already been defined, but rivers can be detected and tagged as waterway=riverbank or waterway=river. Rivers should not contain the natural=water tag.

2002 Stream Network

This layer contains flowlines for rivers and streams as well as centerlines for lakes and ponds. It contains small rivers and streams that are not included in any other layer. Additionally, it contains names of all the elements, which can be used to supplement the Waterbodies (Rivers, Bays & Oceans) layer. Rivers should be tagged as waterway=river and streams as waterway=stream. Neither should have the natural=water tag.

Userful attributes:

NAME (NAMECK)

Layers Imported

2002 Landuse/Landcover

Land use polygons for the State have been added to OpenStreetMap. New Jersey has a high-quality land use/land cover data set that was imported to OSM. The data was spatially simplified (the original data had 800k+ polygons) and the attributes were generalized to the Anderson Level 1 and 2 classifications (i.e. agriculture, forest, water, wetlands) and then added to OSM in a bulk upload. The data was divided into 75 parts, each part exported to the .osm file format and individually uploaded using bulk_upload.py or JOSM. All 75 pieces have been successfully uploaded and the Mapnik and Osmarender maps have been updated. Please correct the land use data as needed.

The source data has a 2002 vintage. Certain land use classifications, such as "landuse=construction" is an indicator as to where new roads may exist, but have not yet been mapped.